Questions: 1. What do you think collective intelligence is? 2. How do you normally use it? 3. Do you think it could easily in your classes? 4. Could you link it to your curriculum and things you are interested in?
Answers (From Hillsview School For Girls pupils):
Q1: Collective intelligence is when a group of people share information for one goal ie: wikipedia means any one can share information on a specific subject for the benefit of the collective. Q2: sites like wikipedia are used in science and COPE (certificate of personal effectiveness)although they are generally frowned upon by teachers because there is no way of telling whether the information on the site is factual or made-up. There is also a collective intelligence maths site but we cannot remember what it is! Q3: Yes, we could use it easily in classes by cutting and pasting the information. Although there even if we read it carefully there is no way we could tell if the facts are correct without consulting books or other online sources. The very nature of a sit that utilises collective intelligence would mean that the information is not neccessarily factual.
Q4: It's unlikely we could use it effectively in the curriculum but we could definitely use it for things we are interested in that do not need 100% factual information. If we were interested in a famous person for example, it would just give us a flavour of the person without having to be completely true. It's a bit like gossip!
Background
'Collective Intelligence is a term for the knowledge embedded within societies or large groups of individuals' (from 'The Horizon Report 2008'). In some places, collective intelligence can be very clear, and obvious, but in other places, there is tactit intelligence, which results from data created by what people do online, over a periods of time. This data halps us to predict information about what people prefer, and what their behavoiur is like. 'Collective intelligence applications are an outgrowth of "open data", the practice practice and philosophy that certain data should or even must be freely available to everyone' (from 'The Horizon Report 2008). Very well known examples of this is Wikipedia or Freebase. Both of these websites let you update their information with your knowledge and read what others have written. Collective intelligence is by definition highly distributed both in it's implicit (not clear and obvious) and explicit (clear and obvious) forms.
For our chosen topic, we have chosen to do Animal Rights. We will be making a few lists of ways that animal rights can be taught in each subject using collective intelligence.
Social Studies- Animal Rights in the past
Collective intelligence could help with animal rights in the past in social studies by letting us see what has been done in the past, on websites such as wikipedia, and learn about what is planned for the future on websites like peta2.com. People can also put up thier views and facts that they know
The first known law for prevention of animal cruelty was passed in Ireland in 1635. It meant that farmers could not attach the plough to the horse using the horse's tail, and you were no longer allowed to pull wool off sheep
In 1886 the first animal protection group was formed. This was the American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
In 1933 the Nazis passed the 'most comprehensive set of animal protection laws in Europe'
After 1945, there was an increase in the use of animals, despite more people protesting for animal rights
In 1976, the Animal Liberation Front was formed by Ronnie Lee, whilst he was in prison (Lee was formerly in an anti-hunting group called Band of Mercy). This group was formed of old Band of Mercy activists, and also some new people.
The Animal Liberation Front is now working in 38 countries, as a leaderless animal liberation group. The ALF have also been added to a list of domestic terrorist threats by the US government
Health/Physical Education- Vegetarianism:
Teaching about the benifits and down-sidesof being vegetarian through collective intelligence by letting people research by themselves and create a wiki afterwards using everyones newly learned knowledge
Vegeterianism does lower the likelihood of getting a heart attack, but vegeterians are often low in vital things such as iron, vitamin b, calcium or protein
You can get supplements, like iron melts, or spatone to give you the necessary nutrients
Vegeterians usually have lower intake of saturated fat
Vegeterianism is also thought to reduceE. coli infections
Music- Bands and Celebrities that support animals:
In music we couls look at bands/songs/celebrities that support animals and look at writing out own songs using this as an idea. Collective intelligence could help by uploading all songs like this to one website using the knowledge of ourselves and others.
Some of these bands/celebrities include: Gabe Saporta (Cobra Starship), Pamela Anderson, Leona Lewis, Andy Hurley (Fall Out Boy), Tom Higginson (Plain White T's), Cameron Diaz and Leonardo da Vinci.
Celebrities and musicians who support animal rights may also write songs about this.
One example of a song for animal rights is
Food Technology- Organic food taste tests:
We could use collective intelligence to find out what tastes better- organic or non-organic. We could make a certain type of food (vegetarian, vegan, organic and non-orgainc) and see if people can tell the difference and which one tastes better. We could search recipies and put them up on the wiki and peolple can try making them and tell us their feedback about them to contribute to collective intelligence.
People can add thier opinions very easily to a collective intelligence website so people could review others opinions and there fore generate our own, on a stronger base of knowledge
The most common viewpoint is that testing on animals, to achieve scientific and medical goals, is justifiable if animal suffering, and use is minimal
Smaller arguments include that: that animals are beings with beliefs, desires and self-consciousness (and therefore should have rights), or more extremely,that any benefits to human beings cannot outweigh animal suffering, and that human beings have no moral right to use an individual animal in ways that do not benefit that individual.
Many animals, during being tested on are yelled at or hit roughly, and treated inhumanely
Some animal activism groups engage in direct action on the behalf of actions. These groups include: Animal Liberation Front, Animal Rights Militia and Animal Liberation Brigade
However the way these people act often endangers innocent people, who have not been directly linked to animal testers etc
Three things scientists are doing to make animal testing more humane are: "methods that enable researchers to obtain comparable levels of information from fewer animals, or to obtain more information from the same number of animals, preferred use of non-animal methods over animal methods whenever it is possible to achieve the same scientific aim and methods that alleviate or minimize potential pain, suffering or distress, and enhance animal welfare for the animals still used".
Some religions say you cannot eat animals. These include buddhists, jainists, some sikhs, some jews and hindus.
Science- Medical animal testing:
In science people test things on animals that are similar to humans and can fing life-saving cures. We could examine whether this is a good way to find cures etc. using collective intelligence by researching different cures on websites about medical progress and asking people what they think happens and thier views on testing.
All drugs, especially recent ones,are tested on animals
These drugs include: insulin, prozac, penicillin, panadol, neurofen (ibuprofen), voltaren (diclofenac) and cannabis (for taking away pain, such as cancer patients, when people go blind (glaucoma) and eating disorders such as bulimia)
Insulin revoulutionised the treatment of diabetes, and was first tested on dogs
Anibiotics, and vaccines for leprosy were deveolped using armadillos
Laws were passed to make animal testing required before releasing a medicinal product in 1937 after a drug labeled “Elixir of Sulfanilamide” killed more than 100 people
In 2005 a total of 12.1 million animals were used for testing drugs on. These animals include guinea pigs, mice, rabbits, rats and amphibians/fish
"The regulations that apply to animals in laboratories vary across species. In the U.S., under the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act and the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (the Guide), any procedure can be performed on an animal if it can be successfully argued that it is scientifically justified. In general, researchers are required to consult with the institution's veterinarian and its Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee(IACUC), which every research facility is obliged to maintain.The IACUC must ensure that alternatives, including non-animal alternatives, have been considered, that the experiments are not unnecessarily duplicative, and that pain relief is given unless it would interfere with the study."
The types of vertebraes used in animal testing in 2005
English- Formal writing/How animal rights are represented in magazines:
People bring light to the horrific situations some animals are in such as factory/battery farming or bad homes or zoo's by posting opinions on collective intelligence sites or writing letters to editors at newspapers such as the New Zealand Herald or to magazines such as Good
An example of semi-formal writing is below, which we are sending to Creme magazine and Girlfriend magazine. We are also going to write a piece to send into the New Zealand Herald or something similar.
Hey guys. I would like to rant about animal rights. I read this magazine every month, and I always see people talking about really great things like human rights and how curves are cute too, but never about animal rights. Did you know that 74% of the worlds poultry meat are factory farmed? And mice (the cute kind) are the most used animal in animal testing? So all those beauty products you use could have been tested on animals. The food that farmers use to feed their chickens, added all together, could feed all the starving children in the world. That includes the factory farming animals and the free range. If you are a vegetarian, that’s great! But if you aren’t and don’t want to give up meat altogether, look for free range meat, dairy and poultry products. Be like Gabe Saporta from Cobra Starship, or Cameron Diaz and look after the animals. As Gandhi said, ‘To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.’ So go for it, save the animals! xx
By Emily Bray
Art- Campaign Art:
We could use collective intelligence for campaign art by having sites such as DeviantArt where anyone can upload things and contribute thier thoughts. They could then choose one to be the headline picture for the campaign. Groups could choose and say their thoughts on the artworks as collective intelligence.
You could make an artwork (such as this one but better), take a photo of it or scan it, and upload to an collective intelligence art site, such as deviantart.com, so then everyone can see it. The problem is with this is, unless you put a watermark on it (a feauture available of deviantart) anyone can take it and claim it as their own. Notes on Collective Intelligence Video:
Show wikipedia and other similar websites
Voice over explaining
Diagrams
Use One True Media to edit
Show animals
One example of teaching animal rights with collective intelligence
Film cupcake tasting and put into video
Make example cupcake wiki to go with video
Use info from background on wiki
Use questions on wiki to do mini video survey as intro and stream throughout video
Use part from Collective Intelligence - The Vision Case 0:07 to 0:21, 0:23 to 1:02 and all Don Tapscott parts
Use questions asked to other schools as part of voice over
Include art by showing deviantart.com as an example of collective intelligence
When voiceover gives examples of collective intelligence switch between pages to show what collective intelligence sites could look like
Examples
Junior/Primary
In Junior/Primary, Collective intelligence is being shown by websites like Wikipedia, WikiJunior, Britannica online and Britannica Junior online. For a few of these you need to sign up. By using websites like wikipedia, you can see what other people have said. Junior/Primary school students can use wikipedia (and websites like this) for school projects, ??. By searching their topic/question, they are able to find out about the topic they are researching. These are known as online encyclopaedias. As an example, I am going to talk about wikipedia. The main idea about wikipedia is that it is collective intelligence. People can log on, search what they want to know, and if they know any extra information, they can add it.
Alot of teachers and professers do not like students using wikipedia simply because it is user produced and edited (anyone can edit, change or add information) and it cannot be accurate. Alot of the main or major articles include references so you can follow the information up. Some of the smaller ones don't and need to be varified by a teacher, another website or a book before used in acedemic research. Other websites like freebase are like wikipedia, as they use wikipedia for their articles. This website uses the main wikipedia articles and you can create new ones on freebase which are not necessarily connected to wikipedia. If you were to write an essay about animal rights, using the internet for your notes and research, you would be able to use these sorts of websites. As long as you get references, and verify you information, you would be able to use these websites well.
Week 3:
1. Review week 2 targets- ensure reflection on wiki
2. List of IT skills your group needs to learn 3. Finalise curriculum links
4. Begin/plan video
5. Research content for curriculum links
6. Finalise wiki template/format
7. Think about presentation 8. Write list of questions to ask other schools
Week 4:
1. Review week 3 targets- ensure reflection on wiki
2. Finalise curriculum links
3. Research content for curriculum links
4. Finalise wiki template/format
Heres the wiki Elise made: http://cupcakerecipesandmore.wikispaces.com/. Feel free to add any recipes, opinions etc!
Questions:
1. What do you think collective intelligence is?
2. How do you normally use it?
3. Do you think it could easily in your classes?
4. Could you link it to your curriculum and things you are interested in?
Answers (From Hillsview School For Girls pupils):
Q1: Collective intelligence is when a group of people share information for one goal ie: wikipedia means any one can share information on a specific subject for the benefit of the collective.
Q2: sites like wikipedia are used in science and COPE (certificate of personal effectiveness) although they are generally frowned upon by teachers because there is no way of telling whether the information on the site is factual or made-up. There is also a collective intelligence maths site but we cannot remember what it is!
Q3: Yes, we could use it easily in classes by cutting and pasting the information. Although there even if we read it carefully there is no way we could tell if the facts are correct without consulting books or other online sources. The very nature of a sit that utilises collective intelligence would mean that the information is not neccessarily factual.
Q4: It's unlikely we could use it effectively in the curriculum but we could definitely use it for things we are interested in that do not need 100% factual information. If we were interested in a famous person for example, it would just give us a flavour of the person without having to be completely true. It's a bit like gossip!
Background
'Collective Intelligence is a term for the knowledge embedded within societies or large groups of individuals' (from 'The Horizon Report 2008'). In some places, collective intelligence can be very clear, and obvious, but in other places, there is tactit intelligence, which results from data created by what people do online, over a periods of time. This data halps us to predict information about what people prefer, and what their behavoiur is like. 'Collective intelligence applications are an outgrowth of "open data", the practice practice and philosophy that certain data should or even must be freely available to everyone' (from 'The Horizon Report 2008). Very well known examples of this is Wikipedia or Freebase. Both of these websites let you update their information with your knowledge and read what others have written. Collective intelligence is by definition highly distributed both in it's implicit (not clear and obvious) and explicit (clear and obvious) forms.
Examples of Collective Intelligence
Wikipedia- http://www.wikipedia.org/
Freebase- http://www.freebase.com/
Opensite- http://open-site.org/
Everything2- http://www.everything2.com/
Youtube- http://www.youtube.com/
Collective Inteligence- The Vision
Animal Rights
For our chosen topic, we have chosen to do Animal Rights. We will be making a few lists of ways that animal rights can be taught in each subject using collective intelligence.
Social Studies- Animal Rights in the past
Health/Physical Education- Vegetarianism:
Music- Bands and Celebrities that support animals:
Food Technology- Organic food taste tests:
Religious Studies- Animal testing ethics:
Science- Medical animal testing:
English- Formal writing/How animal rights are represented in magazines:
- People bring light to the horrific situations some animals are in such as factory/battery farming or bad homes or zoo's by posting opinions on collective intelligence sites or writing letters to editors at newspapers such as the New Zealand Herald or to magazines such as Good
- An example of semi-formal writing is below, which we are sending to Creme magazine and Girlfriend magazine. We are also going to write a piece to send into the New Zealand Herald or something similar.
Hey guys. I would like to rant about animal rights. I read this magazine every month, and I always see people talking about really great things like human rights and how curves are cute too, but never about animal rights. Did you know that 74% of the worlds poultry meat are factory farmed? And mice (the cute kind) are the most used animal in animal testing? So all those beauty products you use could have been tested on animals. The food that farmers use to feed their chickens, added all together, could feed all the starving children in the world. That includes the factory farming animals and the free range. If you are a vegetarian, that’s great! But if you aren’t and don’t want to give up meat altogether, look for free range meat, dairy and poultry products. Be like Gabe Saporta from Cobra Starship, or Cameron Diaz and look after the animals. As Gandhi said, ‘To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.’ So go for it, save the animals! xxBy Emily Bray
Art- Campaign Art:
You could make an artwork (such as this one but better), take a photo of it or scan it, and upload to an collective intelligence art site, such as deviantart.com, so then everyone can see it. The problem is with this is, unless you put a watermark on it (a feauture available of deviantart) anyone can take it and claim it as their own.
Notes on Collective Intelligence Video:
Examples
Junior/Primary
In Junior/Primary, Collective intelligence is being shown by websites like Wikipedia, WikiJunior, Britannica online and Britannica Junior online. For a few of these you need to sign up. By using websites like wikipedia, you can see what other people have said. Junior/Primary school students can use wikipedia (and websites like this) for school projects, ??. By searching their topic/question, they are able to find out about the topic they are researching. These are known as online encyclopaedias. As an example, I am going to talk about wikipedia. The main idea about wikipedia is that it is collective intelligence. People can log on, search what they want to know, and if they know any extra information, they can add it.A Video on using wikis and editing
These are a few links to websites for younger students where you are able to do this:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.britannica.com/
Middle/ High School
Alot of teachers and professers do not like students using wikipedia simply because it is user produced and edited (anyone can edit, change or add information) and it cannot be accurate. Alot of the main or major articles include references so you can follow the information up. Some of the smaller ones don't and need to be varified by a teacher, another website or a book before used in acedemic research. Other websites like freebase are like wikipedia, as they use wikipedia for their articles. This website uses the main wikipedia articles and you can create new ones on freebase which are not necessarily connected to wikipedia. If you were to write an essay about animal rights, using the internet for your notes and research, you would be able to use these sorts of websites. As long as you get references, and verify you information, you would be able to use these websites well.
A Video on Editing wiki pages (Wikiversity)
http://en.worg/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Pageikiversity.Team Members
Emily Bray and Elise Campbell
Editor:
Citations
Elise's brain
Emily's brain
youtube.com
wikipedia.org
britannica-direct.com
animalliberationfront.com
goveg.com
peta2.com
peta.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_Front
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_testing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights
Targets
Week 2:
1. Set up Wiki page
2. Dossier of examples of technology - links, articles, clips
3. Decide on context - launch/announce on wiki
4. Read assesment brief
5. Discuss curiculum links with subject teachers - record on wiki
6. List of IT skills your group needs to learn
7. Watch video clip 'VideoClip' 16 March
8. Read Chapter 1 'Grown Up Digital'
Week 3:
1. Review week 2 targets- ensure reflection on wiki
2. List of IT skills your group needs to learn
3. Finalise curriculum links
4. Begin/plan video
5. Research content for curriculum links
6. Finalise wiki template/format
7. Think about presentation
8. Write list of questions to ask other schools
Week 4:
1. Review week 3 targets- ensure reflection on wiki
2. Finalise curriculum links
3. Research content for curriculum links
4. Finalise wiki template/format